I use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I have developed an application that needs to be started up automatically after startup. I used the System>>Preferences>>Startup Applications to add the application to the startup list.

I found that this works erratically, sometimes the application is started correctly (an icon is shown in the taskbar) but not after every startup (ie: I can see the application entry in the system monitor window) but not the application icon in the taskbar.